Snowy Valentine's could have an encore

Mother Nature's combination delivers up to 27 inches of snow

By Dennis Yusko

Updated 8:26 am, Saturday, February 15, 2014

A plow gets stuck on Pine Street near St. Mary's Church in Albany, N.Y. (Michael Farrell/Times Union)

Media: Times Union

Albany

Hardy upstaters mostly stood up to a double-barreled nor'easter that buried some communities in two feet of snow, but municipal officials said the density of the snow and a Saturday forecast for more posed public safety risks.

The storm that started Thursday morning and ended around 7 a.m. Friday dropped 14.4 inches of snow at Albany International Airport, but much more in other parts of the Capital Region. The Helderbergs, the Catskills and western Albany County were hit the hardest. Weather watchers measured 27 inches in South Berne and 24.2 inches in Guilderland Center, according to the National Weather Service.

The forecast for the weekend calls for more precipitation. Up to two inches of snow could fall Saturday, with temperatures topping out in the low 30s.

Road crews, some limited in resources, were hard-pressed to keep up with the driving snow, which fell at a rate of three inches per hour early Friday. Strong winds on Friday afternoon complicated the cleanup by blowing snow onto plowed roads. In Berne, five highway department workers cleaned 75 miles of roads on Thursday night, then went back out at 4 a.m. Friday, town Highway Superintendent Kenneth Weaver said.

The snow came in waves all day Thursday and fell most intensely from midnight to 5 a.m. Friday, National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Wasula said. It ranked among the historic Valentine's Day storms of the last century. Set 100 years ago in 1914, the daily snowfall record for Feb. 14 in Albany is 23.5 inches, according to the weather service. Nearly 17 inches fell at the Albany airport on Feb. 13-14, 2007. "In the last seven years, we've had two pretty significant storms," Wasula said.

Elsewhere, this year's storm dumped 23 inches of snow in Westerlo; 20 inches in Ravena; 18 in Latham; 17 in Troy; 16 in Cohoes; 15.6 in Clifton Park; and 13 in Ballston Spa, Saratoga Springs, Niskayuna and Schenectady, according to the National Weather Service in Albany.